The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 9

THE OBSERVER, STJNDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1955 POtdPEV'G THE TOLERANT DESPOT COLD COMFORT The Thaw. By tlya Ehrenburg. (HarvUl frets. 10a. 6d.) By PHILIP TOYNBEE Edited by Dominique Maroger and translated by iioura The Memoir i of Catherine the Great.

Budberg. (Hamlsh Hamilton. 25s.) Chekhov and that they are moved by the beauties of the spring. Therefore 'we should welcome Ehrenburg's book within its peculiar context, and hope that more books of this kind will appear in Russia. But it would be unbearably patronising simply to pat this Russian writer on the head tor making step in the right direction.

"The Thaw" has now appeared io English, (or our perusal, for our judgment, and Clifton Lodge ETHEL, LADY THOMSON This memoir of a Victorian childhood, with its stories of eminent men and Royalty, ghosts and governesses, evokes in delightfully nostalgic style memories of an opulent era. With 22 photos March 7 15s John Hislop RACING REFLECTIONS Here are the cream of his famous Onerirr articles illustrated in style with drawings by John Skeaping, two in colour 18s Hutchinson depended upon the incons tant favour of the Em press, and upon her skill in managing her husband and steer-mg a safe course amid the rapids (he reeft of Intrigue. Yet ii 1 1 hough she convinces us of her con rage, her intelligence, and her i esourcc. the docn not convince ua id hei truthfulness. Her memoir do not convey even a unity of impression.

YAS Peter as drunken, a impotent or as insane at she pretends? Was the Empress Elizabeth as ignorant and cruel at she is sometimes represented, or did aha in fact have some sympathy for Catherine, whose sufferings were so curiously a repetition of her own? If, during the middle years, she was in fact treated almost as a prisoner of State, how came it that she waa able io have a succession of gifted or beautiful lovers and maintain with loreign ambassadors relations which, in the Russia of to-day, would have been regarded as nfost deviationist? Was she in fact innocent of her husband's murder? Such are some of the questions that will occur. Yet her character emerges clearly. Her steel-like ambition, in the first place. Her superb manliness, which so struck the Prince de Lignc that he christened her "Catherine le grand." Her sentimental affections and her amorous propensity. Her extravagance and love of clothes.

Her sense of fun, which would send her ladies into shrieks of laughter. Her mixture of tolerance and ruth-lessness. Her love of Russia; her high political ability; her magnificence and wisdom. On reading these memoirs one is convinced that they justify the epitaph she wrote upon herself She forgave easily and haled no one. Tolerant, undemanding, of a' pa disposition, she had a republican spirit and a kind heart.

She made good friends. IN 1859 Alexander Herzen published an edition of Catherine the Great's memoirs. The book aroused much speculation at the time and there were those who condemned it ni a forgery. Subsequent rr search in the archives ol llu-House of Romanoff hm proved that these reminiscences of llu-tirsl thirty years of her life wei undoubtedly written or dictated by Catherine herself. Then authenticity does not guarantee then truthfulness.

Catherine was seeking, twenty years after the event, lo justify her own conduct. I am glad indeed that incomplete version has now been re-edited by Dominique Maroger and published in this country in an excellent translation by Moura Budberg and with a short preface by Dr. G. Gooch. The book is called The' Memoirs of Catherim the Great and will give equal pleasure to those who like stories of court intrigue, to those who arc fascinated by the transition phase when Russia was first casting her Kalmuk slouph and pretending to he European, and to those who arc perpetually amaed hv the self-discipline which etrcmelv ambitious people manage to impose upon themselves lf pfv indeed." wrote Vollairc, "will he he author who a century from now will tell the story of Catherine II It is evident from the style of these memoirs that when the Empress, at the age of fifty and at the verv summit of her despotism, sat down to write about her earlv siuKplcs and indignities she en-joed herself thoroughly Her purpose may have been to suggest lo her son that even if she had condoned the murder of his putative father, she had done so in the interests of Holy Russia.

But as she I AM about to write an unfavourable review of a Communist novel but before the usual correspondents reach for their pens, acid bottles and nottu de guerre let me hasten to give them a kindly warning. This is a Malenkov novel, and its futc under the new regime is very uncertain indeed; it would bo wise to wait before putting oo much money on Mr. Ehrenburg. For my part, 1 write with genuine regret that The Thaw is a dreary and incompetent little work, for only a very hardened counter-revolutionary would wish that Soviet, writing should be bad. And in this particular case there were peculiarly cogent reasons for hoping that the book would prove much better than it is.

For this novel has been the occasion of a cause cilibre in Russia, and Western sympathies would naturally be engaged tor rather than against Ehrenburg in the public dispute of last year. The Thaw first appeared in serial form during the summer of 19S4, and it was immediately regarded as a startling manifestation of the change in the political climate of Russia which had followed the death of Stalin. The title was symbolic of this change, and the theme, we understood, was that individuals in Soviet society are not, and should not be, impersonal models of socialist perfection. They are to be considered as human, possessed of human weaknesses, romantic aspirations, private and complex emotions. rTHE book was immediately and violently attacked by Simonov.

the acting head of the Union of Soviet Writers, on the expected grounds that it presented a false picture of the splendid reality. Ehrenburg had failed to show the forward-looking heroism of Soviet man, and so on and so on. Yet it was vastly encouraging that Ehrenburg was able to reply, in the same official periodical which Simonov had used for his attack, and that his answer was a spirited and undaunted defence of his position. Attacked again at the Writers' Congress of December, he again replied with undiminished assurance. When we read about these exchanges we felt that Ehrenburg, whatever his abject conformity in the past, was genuinely fighting for a new artistic freedom and tor the rijjnt to give a true ramcr than a grimly idealised picture of Russian life.

Nor does the book belie these creditable intentions. Over and over again we are reminded that the characters are human, that they are capable of falling in love (even unsuitably'), that they like reading By HAROLD NICOLSON i cca Us those dark eighteen years when she was the wile of Ihe Isarcvich. surrounded by intrigue and in constant dread of lmpri.mn-mcni or cuilc. hct mcmoiv becomes so alert thnt the tor gen her thcsn iind stmtv with a hnpnv German iluuklc. lo trll us ulinniie tntn hnl occuurd 1 lie niu i ii outlines ol the sloi are tnniiliiii Sophia Anhull citm.

daughter ot Gcrm.ui princeling who was governor ot Stettin, was lecommended by fiedcrick the Great as a possible bride for the Grand Duke Peter, nephew and heir to the Empress Elizabeth Pelrowna. At the age of fourteen, in the company of her deplorable mother, she was sent to Russia to be inspected. She met with the approval of the Empress. was admitted to the Orthodox Church under the name of Catherine, and was married to the idiot Tsarevich in 1745. For the next eighteen years, until the death of the Empress Elizabeth in 1762.

she schemed and waited with astonishing endurance, patience and caution. During the six short months that her husband reigned as Tsar Peter III he committed the folly of antagonising both the Church and the Army-Then came the happy July day when Catherine, arrayed in the uniform of Colonel of the Guards, rode down to Oranienbaum, arrested her husband, forced him to abdicate, and sent him off to prison at Ropscha with Orloff as his jailor. Two days later the Tsar was murdered. Catherine was proclaimed Empress of all the Russias and reigned with benevolent despotism for the next thirty-four years. The memoirs break off suddenly in the middle of sentence in April.

1759. Certain subsequent notes and memoranda, which are printed in this edition, make it clear that Catherine intended lo continue ihem. But all we have at present is this astonishing record of the years of waiting, when Catherine's life Meditemmca. Mortimer. I2s.

6d.) By Chapman (Cresset Press. The Mountain and the Molehill. Bv Honor Croome. (Chatto and Windus. 12s.

(id.) Love and Money. By Erskine Caldwell. (Heineman'n. 10s. 6d.) Love from a Convict.

By Veronica Henriqucs (Seeker and Warburg. 9s. ad.) uses them, one tries, by using ihcm, lo impose an ideal. Thai last is a mistake, never lorncl il. Sara; one doesn't impose an ideal, one ends by imposing onlv one's own will, and the human will is always impure, always cgotisuc.

however much one tries to purge it. however hard one is to oneself People who cultivate and exeacisc the will loo long and too intensely become dangerous. Serious though ils theme is. this book is written with grace and humour; and how refreshing it is to read a novel that radiates intelligence. Love and Money makes one wish one were back God's Little Acre at the other end of Tobacco Road.

I could make neither head nor tail of this odd narrative, which seems to have been put together on the culting-room floor. Rick Sutter, a writer of lamentably successful historical novels, falls in love with Tcss, a "cocktail" girl with flexu-ous hips (not to be confused with a girl) who serves him drinks in the Orange Blossom Bar in Sarasota, Florida. He is in thai dangerous belween-books period" and his publisher and his agent who are improbably called Harvey Farthing and Jack Bushmillion try every By NEW NOVELS JOHN DAVENPORT Evil Communications Seduction of the Innocent. Press. 21s.) By By MARGH ANITA LASKI Hamilton Basso "A superb novel about likeable, interesting people.

Hi" is a novelist of power and Mlhtlety." R. EDMONDS. SPHERE It Spell is undeniable." YORKSHIRE E. POST XI.OOO copies sold ELIZABETH COXHCAD Tie Figure in the Mist "A very intelligent and perceptive novel." m. guardian A delight from start to i.iiisn.

L. A. G. STRONG, SPECTATOR -COIUMS They're talking about CONNELL'S life of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (KNIGHT ERRANT, net) "An American of great charm and courage." news chronicle.

IZZARD'S remarkable adventure Innocent on Everest "A dry-land Kon-Tiki." mail. 1 6- net) ANN'S Hong Kong novel Soldier of Fortune "A thriller in the very highest class." timks i it. sipp. (126 net) and Doris Leslie commends HODDER AND STOLGHTON Publishers of (Catherine' CARNIVAL BY THE SEA Sigrid de Lima ery The Times 'Fxtrcmely accomplished, even Manchester Guardian 6d OF SINS WINTER Maurice Rowdon A gunner officer of the Italian campaign visits Austria to meet his former enemies. Extremely graphic, poignant and Birmingham Pott lit 6d (J CHATTO WINDUS The Secret Diary of Harold L.Ickes S.

Secretarv of the Interior 1933 46 Voi 193.3-6. Vol. ii, 1936-9 the shrewd adviser ho did as much as any of Roosevelt's colleagues to help the President to e.mde the U.S. towards her deslin of international leadership a document no specialist can a fiord to miss NDAY TIMES Ms 6d each Catholic Approaches 4. Fmnn by I.Am Pakfntham A collection ol ten essays.

I l.inJmjrk in Fnglish Catholic histor- ii mnrks the emergence of a Catholic social consciousness in ihe face ot the modern world i able I5s WEIDENFELD NICOLSON The Ashes their dream fulfil ed the dre.im of cer book loser i the i im cf a W. H. SMITH MOOSE the second task of an English reviewer must be to appraise bv our own standards, however misguided these may be. By these standards it emerges as a novel of a painful, because a calculated, brash, dull, and hopelessly unconvincing. 1VE are shown a provincial factory in Russia with which all the principal characters are directly or indirectly connected.

There is a displeasing manager, who is removed, a tormented idealistic designer, a shy engineer, a bad (careerist) artist, and a good (unambitious) one, a heroic old schoolmaster, and a large number of women, all of whom are in love but dare not, until the end of the book, admit it. The morality which the book purveys is. by the standards of a socially conscious Westerner, impeccable. It is true that many passages remind us that the Americans are very wicked and the Russians very good, but this emerges as a difference of interpretation, not of ethics. It the Korean war had ended differently from the war in Spaih, the aggressors would have to think again, and the friends of peace the world over could raise their heads." Well, we all hope that the aggressors will have to think again and that the friends of peace will raise their heads.

But if we imagine this unspeakably naive interpolation appearing, reversed, in a Western novel, we begin to see how low the book must stand in our own critical estimation. The characters are taken straight out of stock from the great Russian masters, though chipped about a bit to suit the new times. Tho technique is elementary and tho virtuous sentiments are applied so flatly that they succeed only in causing acute exasperation. It is a depressing fact that we must say "Bravo!" to a book which, since it is boring as well as bad, would probably have failed to find a publisher in the West if it had not been written by Ehrenburg. Let us hope, however, that Simonov will not be given his head by the new regime.

Let us hope for many more bad Russian books of this kind, for at least they provide the literary' atmosphere in which a good one might appear. Fredrlc Wert ham, M.D. (Museum but what other people in search of profit have decided will appeal to the lowest common mass-denominator. Can anything of real value thus be communicated If the functions of art, craft, entertainment, religion and the dissemination of knowledge are to develop the potentialities of man, their distorted expressions in to-day's mass-media can only stultify, reduce and corrupt. But I do not believe that the particular nature of the subject-matter so treated is what is important.

Many say that the horror-comics are no worse than sadism in the popular Sunday Press. They are right but have they gone nearly far enough? Are these things worse than manufactured sentimentality, popularised religion, public pal-ship, adulterated music, fanciful furniture, false indignation, misleadingly simplified facts, all the results of trying to please for profit and stifling any impulse to offer what is sincerely believed to be valuable? The lowest common denominator is invoked and satisfied. Each corruption of the mind softens the way foe the next, each, like the drug It is, making it harder and harder to seek or even to recognise what, is truly valuable. Corruption is indivisible. But horror-comics are different!" people exclaim.

They are given to children!" And yet I wonder whether the horror-comics, because their matter is of the kind we traditionally accept as shocking, have not been unconsciously welcomed as a scapegoat for a wider guilt. It seems likely now that horror-comics will be suppressed by law, but when they are, will our children be living in an uncorrupting world? Dr. Wertham's able presentation of his evidence leads him to the conclusion that horror-comics should be banned by law, as they are, he points out, in the Soviet Union. But to know whether, without repression, they would appear there would be to know a significant part of th answer to the most important question about Russia, the question of its spiritual values. Whether we can, without repression, eliminate, here not only horror-comics but the whole range of corrupt communications that make them both possible of production and acceptable to our children is a problem whose answer might show whether the moral and social in a word, the human values of our civilisation are worth the cost of defending them.

istorv MARCH TODAY 26 The monthly historical illustrated magazine for the General Reader. Editors Peter Quennell and Alan Hodge. Among artitrUi in thm March (uo mrm Formoaa An absorbing account of the Anngig political complex ton of the island from lbs bemiiniM of ita hiatorv to the present day. Alabama flmimm A bitter Anglo-American cootrover7 cl urine the American Civil War. and iu broader bearing on Anglo-American I relations past and present.

0 From Reed-Hat to Brick Palace A fascinating itudy in Mesopotamian archaeology by Sir Leonard "Woolley. Lord Rmnttalph CfanrehiU An account of the dauling career of the inventor of Torv Democracy-" or by 71. Cotman Str.rt. 33. p.n..from thm piAliihtr In is CLAUDE PAUL CLAUDEL, the octo-gonarian French poet and diplomatist who1 died but week, was little more than a highly charged name to most non-Frenchmen.

His densely written, profoundly religious works have on the whole been treated outside France with respectful neglect. Few of the plays have been translated into English, and fewer still have been performed here or in America. We knew him as the resolute though unsuccessful assailant on the soul of Andre Gide, rather than as a literary master in his own right. One amiable story about him has, however, reached this country. Some years ago, when Claudel was so ill that he was assumed to be on his death-bed.

a- disciple besought his good offices with God in I shall tie a knot in my shroud," answered tho bard. On the whole, however, he made few jokes about his faith. His ferocious and earnest piety would perhaps strike an unfamiliar note on English ears. Recently we have been accustomed to associate intellectual Christianity with a certain amount of nostalgic buffoonery. Claudel's faith would probably have dismayed some of his fashionable tellow-Chnstians in England.

P. T. Turkish Summers VTRS. MARY GOUGH has obvi-ously enjoyed her summers in Cilicia as dogsbody for her archaeologist husband, and, in the tradition of many a British wife who went along." has tried to re-create their atmosphere in The Plain and the" Rough Places (Chatto and Windus, Mr. Gough was making a surface reconnaissance of sites whose archaeological interest ranges, as he tells us in a helpful postscript, from Hiltite times to the fall of Byzantium, though Roman Gilicia is "his principal occupation.

Mrs. ough held the tape measure, cooked over a pressure-stove, and got to know, at first unwillingly and later with enthusiasm, the talkative, inquisitive, helpful and often over-ubiquitous Turks. Without trying for any literary effects, Mrs. Gough evokes a friendly picture of life in a seldom-visited region of Southern Turkey, giving full credit to current efforts to bring education and good living to the clean, cheerful peasants. It is a pity she could not have found illustrations better capable of revealing the interests and beauties of past and present Cilicia.

M. L. H. Other New Books The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ioces.

Two volumes. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 31s. 6d. each.) American Government Its Theory and Practice explained for the English Reader.

By Richard H. Pear. (MacGibbon and Kee. 15s.) Called Ur- Tho Personal Experiences of 16 National Servicemen told by themselves. (Wingate.

10s. 6d.) Sonnets of conventional compliment, as well as of deep feeling, and they employ many images that may be as much based on the fashion in sonneteering as on a deep philosophy that goes straight forward to "The Tempest." Some favourite words may owe their constant reappearance to their musical value in a line, e.g., rose. Shakespeare's use of language has to be considered in terms of music as well as of meaning. We need not give profound significance to every syllable. The poet can be conceived as the sage of an Ivory Tower or as the play-smith in the hot forge and working-house of London's theatres.

Mr. Wilson Knight devotes his perspicacity to exploring the Ivory Tower and. as an interpreter of its occupant, he is subtle and diligent. He continues to give erudite counsel to those who can see the poet as he does. To those who do not, to those chiefly excited by the miracle of so much beauty emerging from the strife and sweat and play-house rivalry amid the stews and the bullrings of the Bankside, Mr.

Knight's Shakespeare will seem a distant, academic, and rather unapproachable figure. They will wonder how this Shakespeare ever stooped from his metaphysical preoccupations to his gross bawdry, to his relish of the tavern humours, and to his continual interest in the common man and in the shrewd investment of his earnings. 1 Lent is a time for spiritual reading. If you are puzzled or find the traditional formu lations of Christianity too remote from reality read Nathaniel Micklem's ULTIMATE QUESTIONS which successfully presents the Faith in terms of the issues which are vital to-day READY MARCH 7 7s. 6d.

1896 Samuel Butler argued that Princess Nausicaa was the author of Homer's Odyssey. ROBERT GRAVES tells her story in bis novel Homer's Daughter This charming jeu d' esprit presents the bones of the Odyssey story transferred to a Sicilian setting. Disbelief is suspended, myth becomes reality. Maybe Samuel Butler was right after all." Daily Telegraph "A delightful and exciting story. It not a book that carries the odour of the study.

It has a fresh charm, at once simple and subtle, that is thoroughly Odyssean Scotsman We see and feel and smeUVthe Sicily of 750 B.C. The story is told with extraordinary vivacity and humour. Nausicaa herself takes her place as one of the most enchanting heroines in fiction." s. p. B.

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6d. an A World of Love JONATHAN CAPE Lore Mottey ERSKINE CALDWELL This new novel, the story of a man obsessive love, reveals tne author ot tobacco road in a lighter-hearted and far more tender mood. Out on Monday. 10s. 6d.

Details Of Jeremy Stretton AUDREY ERSKINE LINDOP "A gripping story" DANIEL GEORGE Will be widely read and discussed" GLYK- DANIEL Daily Mail 12s. 6d. Loser Takes All GRAHAM GREENE "The author calls this 'An So it is, and the background is brilliant HOWARD SPRING Country Lift Reprinting, Already, vs. 6d. HEINEMANN LETTERBOX! The postman's knock brings enduring pleasure to Readers Union homes.

Each month he carries an exciting packet containing (a) an important recent book (b) pet haps an extra special volume and (c) a copy of the sparkling Headers News. So you are kept in touch; and these RLT books build into a good-looking life-time library. Ah, here's the crux oar privileged members receive for books which will be costing anyone else up to 30m. What an incredible dividend for an korestiaent of 2d. a day Such choices as L.

P. Hartley's The Go-Between, Bandoola, The Bombard Story, Duff Cooper's Old Men Forget. Oughtn't you, as a lively-minded reader, to know mora about RU? Weil, just write your name and address in the margin of this Journal, adding 'RU details' or send a past-card to 38 William TV Street, London, W.CO, or phone TEMple Bar 0525. Sydney Morning Herald Prlza-w Inning Novel SOWERS of the WIND by T. A.

G. HUNGERF0RD Ith. 44. KINGSLEY AMIS in the SPECTATOR top of the list TIMES tfTERARY SUPPLEMENT crackles with vitality ANGUS ROBERTSON LIFE The Lure of the The Mutual Flame. By G.

Wilson Knight. (Methuen. 8s.) By IVOR BROWN YHAT a genius is, and what a work ol" art is. are dubious matters what is certain is that a book like IVfeditcrraneo is not onlv different in quality but in kind from the general run of novels It represents an acl of Lrcntion as opposed lo a fc.tt snthclii. ar I if action.

This is Mr Mortimer's fourth hook and fa :iw.i the best, so I believe, ol this pure and oriitin.il writer In the tirst place. the stvlc the ihcme It is a sincu-ljrlv del Kale style, of conti oiled poetry, in which irony and-imagina-tivc reality arc exquisitely interfused Father Cioose, Johnnie, and Bluey those three protagonists of an earlier book are on a boat three miles offshore from a small town in Andalusia. The action, in which they lake no part, although they are as it were metaphysically involved, is played out in the mysierious little town. There is a fiesta, and for the fiesta come some show people, including two acrobats, one of whom has murdered the brother of the main character, a guano named Antonio Santiago Gomez Antonio is one of the most complex creatures imaginable, a poet with a Lorca-hke edge to his dreams. He has the feline independence of his tribe; his honour is larger than Ihe life he is to lose, later.

in Malaga; he desires passionately to be an hottibre. but fie is tcrntied by the task ahead. The revenge he plans, characteristically subtle, is to murder the carnival owner with the acrohal's knife. The acrobat, knowing win the gipsy is in the town, taunted by his sister with cowardice, kills himself attempting an impossible athletic feat at the precise moment, ironically. of the unnecessary murder.

There is more in it than that, howeier, for Mr. Mortimer has somehow succeeded in conjuring up ncucton is the magic word the whole spirit of Andalusia it has been conjured up bv da I An extraordinary achieve ment, for an Englishman to have given that IragiL sense of life in so spare a book, a hook, moreover, in which comedy plays so deliciously important a parl. The Mountain and the Molehill belongs ilh iss Dane's Regiment of Women." Miss White's Frost in May" and Madame Hussy's delicate ground tor Ihe heavv mjle hoof Lurching diffidently in. 1 would say that this is a very good novel, if not quite in the same class as its distinguished predecessors. The setting is a small.

Spartan girls' school in Switzerland, ruled and inspired hv the formidable Mane Boissier A new girl, Sara Brennan, is Ihe orphaned daughter of Mane's dearest friend and former colleague, who betrayed her trust by marrying an ecceninc idealist. The effort of conforming lo Marie's standards, which are of an icily Platonic aliitude, is too much for Sara, who becomes involved in a junior teacher's surreptitious love affair with a a man An attempt at suicide is narrowly averted Marie Boissier decides to close the Ecole Libre One Msthis, one snuggles, one discovers in oneself certain powers, one Tns famous guide to improved band' writing (revised and enlarged) was the suhet of the rtcmt Observer artule Fully illustrated 126 FABER CT FA FR rj-r ran'1, xiurai ''TCuimrnnK'n THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKSHOP A It nsv Rooks at atlabte on day of publication Secondhand and rarr Booj on evrry subject Dv.tto far Mmjh at loerry Rrinrdt iimmAttrajl 1 noli amj Kialrrtais jotm In Bflo tmb' Bii fv (JS'LY i A HrrM for 119-125 IUHIM. ROM) I OMION Vk( 2 thing lo head him back lo work, ess flees from Rick Rick pursues. Rick asks her to marry him Tess refuses and moves on all the time 10 New Orleans, Texas, Colorado. He is finally convinced that she, doesn't want to marry him and moves on himself to Santa Barbara, where he settles down to wrie another fustian best-seller, greatly to the relief of Harvey Farthing, who explains that having got into the habit of making "fictional women" so desirable Rick will "always" be disappointed with every last one ot them in real life." Yes," says Mrs.

Farthing, that's the price authors have to pay for being authors." There we leave Rick at his typewriter, finally convinced of the hopelessness of finding the ideal (non-fictional) wife, that perfect, that impossible blend of Calpurnia, Messalina, and Mrs. Tittlemouse. Lore from a Convict is a first novel of an unusual kind. The story is implausible, the style flat, the end ing inconclusive; and yet you are compelled lo get to the end, as Miss Henriques has a genuine gift of creating suspense. You may feel fobbed off on the final page, but the laugh, so to speak, is on you she has drawn you, however unwillingly, along with her.

She promises more than she fulfils; but promise is itself rare enough, and her next book will be more satisfactory lhan this tale of a girl reporter who falls in love with a convict in a dreamily adolescent, determinedly stubborn way. In justice to Miss Henriques, it must be said that the convict is as puzzled by it all as the reader. Sonnets, and thus carries on his analvsis of he emotional ecstasies and repulsions conveyed, sometimes so obscurely, in the latter. The work is done with his usual thoroughness and with a wide reference to similar ideas and feelings in the writings of other men. notably Shellev, Michelangelo, and Nietzsche.

We are thus moving in a world very far removed from that of Shakespeare's workaday life. Many people visualise Shakespeare, with plenty of reason on their side, as an intensely practical man. busy and. as a rule, continually successful with the supply of plays lhat would win esteem and show a profit for his "fellowship" of actors. He served them for twenty years and for their various talents he could knock out the right kind of pans.

He was also "in management and an actor. In the midst of this whirl of creation, administration, and of some personal performance he must have written his Sonnets in a haphazard way, unless they are to be dated back to his earliest and less busy years in London. Could they have been, as Mr. Knight sees them, a carefully made vehicle for a whole scheme of ideas? The Sonnets contain a good deal A novel of major importance VIRTUE HAS NO TALONS RAYNOR D. CHAPMAN Yorkshire Post Mr.

Chapman has an uncommon gift of narrative and a feeling for the graceful flow of prose." 106 net McEWAN LAWSON'S new tight on Christ to-day Understanding JESUS CHRIST Christian World The dominating presence of a personality, intensely human and inescapably divine, stands out of every page 10 6 net HERBERT JENKINS "flERE is an indictment of American comic-books by a psychiatrist specialising in the treatment of children. After reading it, one wonders why no one has suspected the American comic-book industry of being a Red Plot. It is unbelievable that any profit motive, however great, can tempt citizens to produce material that must not only contribute to the corruption of their society but provide such terrifying evidence of corruption already existing. The latter point does not occur to Dr. Wertham.

He is one of the many people, not only in America, who regard the publication of sexual, sadistic and horrifying matter for near-illiterates as an isolated phenomenon of corruption to be eliminated by repression. He is a master of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc method of argument. There are many juvenile delinquents in America, most of them read horror-comics (foul beyond anything we have yet seen here), and some of them commit unpleasant actions directly inspired by the comic-books; from this it follows that comic-books are the major factor in the formation of juvenile delinquents. Never does he ask why comic-books appeal to most children, nor sufficiently examine the reasons why a few children escape their attractions. He completely ignores the most vital problem of all, which is the nature of the social conditions in which adults are able and willing to provide this repellent reading matter.

The horror-comic issue has been widely used for anti-American propaganda but, as Dr. Wertham shows, horror-comics have sold profitably throughout Western Europe, and the conditions in which they flourish can well be examined at home. I would argue that horror-comics for children are simply the inevitable end-product of an unremitting stream of corrupting matter produced by the misuse of mass-cemwmnicatioas. Probably the only form of com-rmmication which has value is sincere Cttmnronlcation, the amount of value depending on the maturity and technical ability of both creator and recipient. But to-day too many people among our novelists, journalists, artists, script writers, advertisers, politicians and priests are producing not even what they themselves believe to be acceptable to the masses.

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jrr saaaa J)R. LESLIE HOTSON, the Jack Horner of Shakespearean scholarship, has recently accompanied his drastic upsetting of the usual dating of the Sonnets with a promise of another plum in the matter of persons involved. For the provision of that fruit we are all appetite. If anybody can discover a new and effective key to the locked rooms of these poems of strange provenance, abstruse meaning, and ever-debated significance, what a number of unnecessary books he will avert. But the literary criticism will continue, and it is chiefly that to which Mr Wilson Knight contributes in Tiif Mi'tval Flamt.

He prefers investigation of metaphor and symbol to identification of Ihe people involved in a personal drama of powerful and conflicting emotions His Shakespearean commentaries are a continuing pattern because he believes that Shakespeare's menial processes were themselves a continuing pattern, a scheme of philosophy as well as of imagery. He reasonably links that metaphysical leaser," The Phoenix and the Turtle, a problem poem if ever there was one. with the psychological integration -pattern of ihe How free are Russian writers Do authors in the Soviet Union have to ioc the line Is criticism stifled Are novelists allowed a free hand to develop their ov. ideas, their own iheme and st le Soviet Literature, monthlv magazine of I 1 1 I I IJ, UllU VI It Ol 13 I I IJIII II 1 IL union, contains snort siories, iuii-k'ngth novels, poelry. drama, art and 1 1 1 ry criticism and ari icles by leading juthors Read and judge for yourself! licosonh fd-a month for an issue of approximately 2iK pages.

A year subscription iosts 12s. ftd. Order it I Kim im bookseEler or send (his toiipon inHAi (U.l VI'S BOOKSHOPS (Dpi M. 44 a nti 45. Museum Si London.

1 1 ils rvd Uuk'ncear uhr ip( ion NAME Sp.cim.n ropy bv rmquttt. 1 London. GEOFFREY BLES.